Living A Life Of Purpose: Dr. Oluwatomilayo (Tito) Daodu is on a mission to make surgical care more equitable and accessible in Canada and all around the world.
Award-winning researcher and volunteer Dr. Oluwatomilayo Daodu didn’t have it easy, thankfully she’s been able to rise above the storm and is now fulfilling a life of purpose by giving back to her world.
Born in Nigeria, moved to Canada, got deported and finally permanently settling in the country at age eight, Daodu grew up in a rough neighborhood in the inner city of Winnipeg.
Unfazed by the reality of her world, the determined soul remained focused and rather poured out her energy at the Wes Broadway Youth Outreach, a local drop-in center for kids, which became her second home. There, she was mentored by volunteers, whom she credits for changing her life.
While there, she decided to do everything in her power to help the less privileged in society, through her field. Today, as the first Black female pediatric surgeon practicing in Canada at the Alberta’s Children’s Hospital Foundation, @ACHFKids the trailblazing Daodu is working to “break down barriers to patients in need of surgical care.”
“When we help the worst off or those with the least access, we do a service to the entire system,” she says.
Dr. Tito Daodu believes pediatric surgeons have the best job in the world.
“They don’t just save lives, they save lifetimes,” she says.
Daodu received her medical training at the University of Manitoba, did her residency and fellowship at the University of Calgary. As a medical student, She was part of a team that developed a project centered on adolescent gender and reproductive health in Tanzania.
Schools days came with sacrifice; while on ‘holidays’ Daodu co-developed a project in Tanzania focused on adolescent gender and reproductive health. She also journeyed home to her native country Nigeria researching early childhood pneumonia and later launched ‘a surgical needs assessment’ for Nigeria as well.
For her outstanding work to society, she was nominated as part of Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40 in October 2019.
Currently, Daodu is pursuing a master’s in public health at the Harvard University’s T.H Chan School of Public health. At Harvard, Daodu is part of a team working to modify the safe surgery checklist for high-income countries around the world, per Avenue Calgary.
She is actively involved in Global and Public Health Research, focusing on improving surgical outcomes and making surgical care more equitable and accessible in Canada and around the world.
Today, she’s driven to offer the same mentorship to kids: “Kids need to believe that it doesn’t matter where they come from or what they look like.”
Dr. Oluwatomilayo (Tito) Daodu upon finishing training will become the first black woman practicing pediatric surgeon in Canada. “One of the things that excites me about the future is that I have a story that not that many people have,” she says. “I am probably uniquely situated from what I’ve gone through in life to be able to speak not just from an academic point of view, but from real life.”
